Political dynamics in Kenya’s post-electoral violence: Justice without peace or political compromise?

The political upheavals that erupted in Kenya after the release of the 2007–8 election results resulted in the death of approximately 1 200 people, as well as the loss of livestock and other valuable property. While the Kenyan government tried to seek solutions to the crisis, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants for the arrest of top government officials. For its part, the African Union (AU) accused the ICC of racism by targeting only African leaders, and maintained that such practices undermine the rule of equality before the law set forth in Article 27 of the Rome Statute. The AU is therefore advising African countries, including Kenya, to consider withdrawing from the ICC. Will the ICC's intervention into the situation in Kenya bring justice and peace to the country, or will it add to the existing injuries affecting not just the country but the region as well? Through a critical analysis of contemporary scholarly discourse, this article unravels the dilemma of the ICC's intervention and the likely consequences of this action for the people of Kenya and Africa.     

Optimizing barge utilization in hinterland container transportation

In hinterland container transportation the use of barges is getting more and more important. We propose a real‐life operational planning problem model from an inland terminal operating company, in which the number of containers shipped per barge is maximized and the number of terminals visited per barge is minimized. This problem is solved with an integer linear program (ILP), yielding strong cost reductions, about 20%, compared to the method used currently in practice. Besides, we develop a heuristic that solves the ILP in two stages. First, it decides for each barge which terminals to visit and second it assigns containers to the barges. This heuristic produces almost always optimal solutions and otherwise near‐optimal solutions. Moreover, the heuristic runs much faster than the ILP, especially for large‐sized instances.     

The assignment of storage locations to containers for a container stack

Assigning storage locations to incoming or reshuffled containers is a fundamental problem essential to the operations efficiency of container terminals. The problem is notoriously hard for its combinatorial and dynamic nature. In this article, we minimize the number of reshuffles in assigning storage locations for incoming and reshuffled export containers. For the static problem to empty a given stack without any new container arrival, the optimum reshuffle sequence is identified by an integer program (IP). The integer program captures the evolution of stack configurations as a function of decisions and is of interest by itself. Heuristics based on the integer program are then derived. Their competitiveness in accuracy and time are established by extensive numerical runs comparing them with existing heuristics in literature and in practice as well as with extensions of the existing heuristics. Variants of the IP‐based heuristics are then applied to the dynamic problem with continual retrievals and arrivals of containers. Again, numerical runs confirm that the IP‐based heuristic is competitive. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2009     

基于数字信道化的极微弱信号载波频率引导模块设计与实现

针对深空探测中常规点数的FFT无法对极微弱信号进行精确的频率引导,而超长点数的FFT无法用现有器件实现,提出一种基于数字信道化的并行FFT频率引导方法.接收信号先经过数字信道化处理,均匀划分为若干窄带信号,然后分别对各子带信号进行FFT运算,最后通过对各子带有效谱线的联合检测完成载波频率的精确估计.在等效219点FFT的频率引导模块FPGA实现中,通过FFT模块的复用节约了硬件资源开销.测试结果表明:在8MHz采样率下该模块的测频精度小于10Hz.     

轴角编码器中的叠加三角波技术研究

针对基于DSP的轴角编码器,运用叠加三角波理论提高A/D转换的分辨率。介绍叠加三角波理论,并结合基于DSP的轴角编码器,对三角波信号的参数设置进行研究,从而有效的提高A/D转换的分辨率。利用叠加三角波法加适当的外围电路,与外接高分辨率的ADC芯片相比,具有更高的性价比,较好的满足轴角编码器对A/D转换的需求。